🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par